Kong Kee Restaurant, Iloilo

The hubby and I had a "spur of the moment"" date yesterday. I asked him if he wanted to join me in doing some window shopping aka passing the time. He willfully indulged my whim and met me outside the office after I got off from work. Healthwise, it had been an exhausting afternoon. Our friendly neighbor decided the floor in her office is not clean enough and that it needs some waxing on a weekday! And as you know, aircon + heavy duty floorwax on a hot summer afternoon does not really sound so well. The strong smell of the wax permeated into adjacent rooms and flooded the hallways. It was hurting our noses and inducing headache for some. It's that terrible that I had wished they'd applied rugby on the floors so we'd all get high and not mind the smell at all.

Anyways, the smell of fresher air outside of the building, made me feel better. More so the fact that my better half was outside the office waiting to take me out on a date! We walked a few blocks from the office and made it to Kong Kee Restaurant. I've always passed by this side of town but I've never had a chance to really stop and give the resto a second look. And now that I did, I noticed that they actually renovated the place! The ceiling fans were still there, the red table cloths on plastic tables, the monoblock chairs and the counter with the owner sitting by the cash register. But the place now looked, well, cleaner with new tilework, chandeliers and Chinese decorations on the walls. The servedoras looked neat in their uniforms too.

During our visit, we ordered maki soup and siopao. Maki is a thickened soup with similar consistency to the egg drop soup. I'm not really fond of this kind of soup but after tasting Kong Kee's rendition of the dish, it made me (and the hubby) want to go home and cook some more of it! It's a very refreshing soup, a recommended during cold rainy days, because of its soothing taste brought about by the subtle combination of ginger, soy sauce and garlic. There was nothing spectacular about the Kong Kee siopao but pairing it with maki was snack heaven! Just the kind of thing needed for me to get over the poison that I had to deal with earlier in the day.

If you happen to do business near the Muelle Looney area, drop by Kong Kee Restaurant at J.M. Basa Street (a block away from the Freedom Grandstand) and get a taste of some of the local Chinese flavors!